Archive for October, 2011

Hank Shaw, author of Hunt, Gather, Cook: Finding the Forgotten Feast, makes a tour stop at the Black Cat Farm Table Bistro in Boulder, Colorado on Tuesday, November 1 to sign books and help guests rediscover that which has been forgotten through a prix fixe feast featuring foraged foods and flavors.

Chef Eric Skokan presents the menu, which is slated to include risotto with porcini and second cutting hay, pickled mallow, campfire trout, spruce, pine nut aioli, crispy thistle, Colorado lamb (not to be confused with the next menu item) lamb’s quarters, burdock root gratin, and pickled rose hips, with maple and walnut cake, black walnut ice cream, and nocino for dessert. Any of the non-foraged ingredients are deeply local, with 80% of the restaurant’s usual provisions coming from their 70-acre Black Cat Farm. Read the rest of this entry

It’s mid October and it just keeps snowing here in the high country at 11,000 feet in Colorado Rockies. You’d think foraging season were over, but it’s not.

Two days ago I awoke to a steady snow and found myself unable to focus on work. By noon it stopped but the wind kicked up; the way it whipped around the house inspired Gregg to curl up by the fire and swear he’d stay inside all day. I felt exactly the opposite, however: I needed to go outside.

It’s hunting season so the hand-me-down pink bell bottom cords and orange puffy vest were in order. It was hat and gloves weather too with all that wind.

The mining road was vacant and the snow plentiful. I reveled in getting fresh tracks as I hiked through 3”- 4” deep swaths of pow. At a switchback I clambered over the fallen tree trunk that obscures the footpath to the secret meadow, which I descended brushing snow off the low bushes as I went.

There were many non-producing low juniper shrubs en route but eventually I found the one I was looking for, which I’d spied a few days prior. It is the most fruitful creeping juniper shrub I’ve ever found, and despite the snow it was still laden with plump, blue berries. Read the rest of this entry

Halfway through October I am once again honored to present the Wild Edible Notebook, my journal-style tale of select plants. This fifth issue is about acorns. It includes an entry about my own experience processing and preparing a bounty of Colorado acorns (yes, we have acorns) as well as a Wisconsin acorn neophyte’s adventures with her back yard bur oak. The accounts feature interviews with none other than wild food guru, Samuel Thayer. There are also reviews of Thayer’s two books, Nature’s Garden (2010) and The Forager’s Harvest (2006) as well as Hank Shaw’s recently-released book, Hunt, Gather, Cook (2011). As you can see from the cover at right, I went hogwild with InDesign’s pencil tool for this issue.

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This blog is just the small-potatoes-rambling of one over-exuberant semi-neophyte foraging addict, but I swear, wild food must be en vogue or something—because in the last four months I have received not one or two but three different emails from producers seeking to create TV or web shows about foraging.

One inquired as to whether my collecting missions require acts of bravery. Acts of bravery? I was inclined to reply in the negative, but, eager to please, I dug deep and ventured this response: “Does hanging off a mountainside to collect currants count?” (It’s not that I have to hang off the mountainside; it’s just that that’s where the best currants are.) I got the sense that he appreciated my effort but found the answer wanting, however.

Next he asked whether I travel worldwide for special wild foods. “Um, no,” I replied. Clearly my hobby is less sexy than TV might hope. “Mostly I forage locally where I live,” I explained. Really I’m just a poor fool working 10 jobs, scavenging my food from the wild so I can afford to live in paradise, and banging away at the keyboard about things that interest me whenever I get the chance. Read the rest of this entry

As of September 2011, the South Park Ranger District does not require a mushroom permit. Fungi foraging in the neighboring White River National Forest, however, requires a free permit for personal use.

Note: I wrote this article at the behest of a Forest Service representative; it is re-posted here, plus subtitles, with permission of the Summit Daily News, which ran it on October 1.

Just as collecting firewood from the national forest for home use requires a permit, so too does foraging for fungus in the White River National Forest in and around Summit County, Colorado, including areas that were once part of the Arapahoe National Forest.

Fungi Foraging Permit Free but Required

“Mushroom gathering requires a personal use permit that we have been issuing for free at the Dillon Ranger District Office,” said Cary Green, timber management assistant for the East Zone White River National Forest. The limit is five gallons of mushrooms/day — the equivalent of one 5-gallon bucket or two grocery sacks — with a total season limit of 67 lbs. Other popular Forest Service permits include those for Christmas trees, boughs and transplants. Read the rest of this entry

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